A LinkedIn profile picture can cost you a job, and people add you as a friend for the sake of business connections.
When looking for a job abroad, many people sooner or later encounter LinkedIn. This is the main professional social network on the Internet, which really helps job seekers find a suitable vacancy, and employers - the right specialist. At the same time, LinkedIn's structure can be off-putting to an unprepared user: too many nuances and subtleties need to be known to attract the attention of a recruiter.
I figured out why LinkedIn is interesting, who it can help, and how to use it to find a job.
When looking for a job abroad, many people sooner or later encounter LinkedIn. This is the main professional social network on the Internet, which really helps job seekers find a suitable vacancy, and employers - the right specialist. At the same time, LinkedIn's structure can be off-putting to an unprepared user: too many nuances and subtleties need to be known to attract the attention of a recruiter.
I figured out why LinkedIn is interesting, who it can help, and how to use it to find a job.
What is special about LinkedIn?
It is a hybrid of a social network and a job search service. The company was founded in 2003 by former Apple developer and PayPal vice president Reid Hoffman. LinkedIn was launched at the dawn of the social network boom and became the "Facebook for entrepreneurs": the company has secured the status of a professional social network, where there is not much room for entertainment.
The social network Facebook belongs to Meta, an organization whose activities are recognized as extremist and banned in the Russian Federation
While Mark Zuckerberg's audience was creating the first memes and friending each other around the same time, LinkedIn was used to find jobs and make connections. Almost 20 years later, LinkedIn has about 850 million registered users and calls itself the world's largest business network.
In 2016, Microsoft acquired the service for a then-record $26.2 billion.
This is a showcase of corporate life. Initially, LinkedIn was primarily used to find top managers — CEOs, CFOs, and other top managers. Now the social network has become a window into the global market for specialists of all levels and professions from 200 countries.
LinkedIn's social component is not lost: users actively share professional successes, companies publish vacancies, and corporations and the world's best universities talk about their inner workings. Here is a math problem from Oxford professors, and here is a gallery of Blizzard employees' workplaces.